Microsoft takes on the free world (Gates wants royalties on Linux)

Fortune Magazine ^ | May 13, 2007 | Roger Parloff

[Zakeet]

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant.

A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers.

But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.

[DenverCossack]

It’s about time this happened! I have been watching this going on for years wondering when the shoe was going to drop. Good for Microsoft! The rest of you sound like a bunch of Walmart whiners.

[plsvn]

Actually, it’s 2GB. There is a boot option to allow you to use 3, but it won’t work. But Dell will sell you 4 GB. Ask me how I know :)

My source for the 2.5 gig upper limit is one of Kim Komando's recent news letters. She suggested that if you've bought a machine with 4 gigs of RAM, you might consider selling some!

[magellan]

Sometimes software patents are not even algorithms. They can be methods, as well as concepts. IBM has a patent on "ecommerce over the web", and there was a dispute between IBM and Amazon on this. Somebody else patented hyperlinking, which makes the entire Internet since the days of the Gopher protocol a giant patent violation.

I'm all for patenting new, real software inventions. But unfortunately, most software patents are B.S. They are not "inventions" per se.

Some software patents are bogused because they patent something which has already been invented by someone else. This is patent poaching. But the patent approval process collapsed under both ignorance of the software industry and the sheer number of patent applications.

Now everyone who has anything to do with creating software is patenting everything it can, so as to protect itself from patent poachers.

[goodnesswins]

Didn’t Gates take his “software” from IBM???? Or am I misremembering something.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents.

You mean like the patent for this?

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly-installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF8FF9524,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

(Gates wants royalties on Linux)

Didn't Gates leave Microsoft recently?

[Vroomfondel]

Otzi, the 5000 year old mummified man of the Alps was found to have an arrow lodged in his back. Human nature has not changed one iota in 5000 years.

Is this another "hunting with Cheney" joke?

It is now.

[HereInTheHeartland]

“Ask me how I know :)”

Your name is Sanji and you work in a India call center for a large, Texas based computer hardware seller?

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

This is Microsoft in an act of desperation. Microsoft's gradually become irrelevant as its core customer is now a shrinking base of home users who (are forced to) buy Windows only with new PC's.

Patent on software ..my rear end. Next we will have someone come forward and demand a patent on quickSort and bubbleSort.

[magellan]

What was it Scott McNealy used to say?

"It's mankind against Microsoft."

Maybe he was right.

The problem here is 90% of Linux customers are also Microsoft customers. And in business customers, its more like 100% of the Linux customers are also Microsoft customers. And the number one rule of business is, you don't abuse your customers.

[Abcdefg]

In before Golden Eagle, P I N G!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Of course they’re lawyered up now. Look what happened to them during the Clinton years.

[grey_whiskers]

Frankly anybody can write an operating system.

Yes, but writing decent code is beyond the capabilities of Microsoft India.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

When Microsoft went around the law by promoting patent law over professional registration, he molded the industry so that his firm attempts to reclassify public service as a competitive service destroying thousands of professional jobs while creating a monopoly.

Worse than that. Microsoft got businesspeople used to the idea that buggy, bloated, utterly incompetent software was the norm. And in the process made it far easier for business to accept offshoring.

Whether by design, or by fortuitous "accident", I'm not sure.

Cheers!

[Hardastarboard]

you can copyright the “Blue Screen of Death”?

LOLOLOL!!! Sounds like you're an "experienced user"!

[KoRn]

Bill Gates can go to hell ping....

[KoRn]

"It seems to me M$ would have to reveal its source code if it wants to prove that Linux has stolen it."

Now that's a good point. The lawsuit would end right there.

[ShadowAce]

[Bigh4u2]

“Didn’t Gates take his “software” from IBM???? “

No. He actually sold ‘Microsoft Basic’ to IBM, beating out Digital Research.

Paul Allen and Bill Gates wrote “Microsoft Basic” based on the BASIC program used on the Altair, developed at MITS.

Here’s a time line.

http://www.thocp.net/companies/microsoft/microsoft_company.htm

[BJungNan]

Wait; you can copyright the “Blue Screen of Death” or having your financial information stolen?

At least that Blue Screen of Death will let you recover your data that you were working on before it crashed.

I work on Macs and when they crash you lose everything. The MAC crash is cute though. Instead of a blue screen it is a gray window shade type thing. Appropriate: the curtain going down on any work you did not save on your crashed Mac.

Windows and Microsoft are not perfect. Just glad it was nto MAC that dominated the industry.